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Jarkko Sakkinen

Starting documenting vcam driver for RFC patch set.

I probably don't convert my test yet to kselftest. For the time being, seeing is believing so I'll just link the test program Git URL to the cover letter. Probably based on feedback I'll also have better information what would be the most appropriate kselftest.
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Jarkko Sakkinen

Edited 4 months ago
For a parentless video device, is it too unorthodox embed dma_mask, dma_parms to your private context struct?

I just put vdev->dev.dma_* to point to those fields.

It seems to work at run-time for vb2_dma_sg_memops.

I don't know really what I'm doing TBH but after trying out different things this seems to work.

I'm just a dude who wants stream Zoom calls with a phone camera - definitely not a V4L2 expert ;-)
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Jarkko Sakkinen

Right, I obviously need separate "IDLE" and "STREAMING" bits in status word despite always being mutually exclusive. Otherwise it is impossible to define meaningful "wait for bits turned on" op :-)
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Jarkko Sakkinen

Lot's of stuff I'm doing with vcam driver are really a versions of ideas re-used that I did for SGX driver :-) Everything is a memory manager of some sort in the end of the day... That driver was really a grand tutorial of Linux device model for me and still helps me to navigate through it today.
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Jarkko Sakkinen

Yet another iteration in ioctl API. Since VIDIOC bindings were dropped from outside completely some complexity of them existing is just unrolling.

Now it is five calls total:

1. VCAM_IOC_CREATE
2. VCAM_IOC_QUEUE
3. VCAM_IOC_DEQUEUE
4. VCAM_IOC_STATUS
5. VCAM_IOC_WAIT

The last two will replace and remove control_fd previously returned by VCAM_IOC_CREATE. It existed because output was using a subset of VIDIOCs previously.
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Because then after sending patches, it's always like 3 minutes before the "oh for fucks sakes"-moment and you want to send an update...
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Jarkko Sakkinen

Now that the uapi in vcam is improving by factors daily that will rather make me postpone sending RFC by a week or two than send it too soon.

When this trend stagnates a bit I'll send the RFC :-)
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Jarkko Sakkinen

Edited 4 months ago
OK with some tweaking vcam ioctls reduced down to three ioctl play:

1. VCAM_IOC_CREATE
2. VCAM_IOC_QUEUE
3. VCAM_IOC_DEQUEUE

Most of stuff went to create ioctl, there's now sysfs attributes for limits and available formats, and frames are anyhow freed when fd is closed.
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It will be reduced a bit. E.g., VCAM_IOC_FREE_FRAMES will be gone.
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Jarkko Sakkinen

Edited 4 months ago
Flattened ioctls:

VCAM_IOC_CREATE
VCAM_IOC_QUERY
VCAM_IOC_SET_FORMAT
VCAM_IOC_ALLOC_FRAMES
VCAM_IOC_IMPORT_DMABUF
VCAM_IOC_QUEUE
VCAM_IOC_DEQUEUE
VCAM_IOC_FREE_FRAMES

The interface is available from fd opened by /dev/vcam, thus making it the life-line of /dev/videoX. The result struct of VCAM_IOC_CREATE provides "control fd", which ATM provides status flag for stream on/off state.

VCAM_IOC_CREATE is one-shot:

1. Before the ioctl is called, other ioctls result -ENOTTY.
2. After successful invocation, the other ioctls become available, and VCAM_IOC_CREATE will result -ENOTTY up until the end.

In other words, no broken use of VIDIOC API and /dev/videoX for outputing frames. Instead, vcam provides a dedicated and consolidated API to perform its task within the constraints what makes sense for virtual webcams and such.

Probably getting ioctls acceptable for reviewers will take a few rounds but I still think that this is the right design choice to get something that we can eventually ship in the mainline kernel.
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Jarkko Sakkinen

Edited 4 months ago
Here vcam-test outputs to /dev/vcam and in sequence streams /dev/video0 and renders the output to KMS/DRM initialized frame buffer.

I need to flatten the ioctl interface of /dev/vcam a bit but otherwise this is looking pretty reasonable...
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Jarkko Sakkinen

As per kselftest for vcam, it will by default do frame comparison without displaying anything but will contain also debug mode, which uses KMS/DRM directly to show the results. It's run mostly run in a VM without window manager anyhow.
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Jarkko Sakkinen

There's uxplay but what are options of libraries capable for streaming AirPlay?
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@jani thanks! better to take this approach now that i'm writing a completely new driver
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Jarkko Sakkinen

Edited 4 months ago
I replaced the misuse of VIDIOCs on driver side with a dedicated ioctl interface:

VCAM_OUTPUT_IOC_QUERY
VCAM_OUTPUT_IOC_SET_FORMAT
VCAM_OUTPUT_IOC_ALLOC_FRAMES
VCAM_OUTPUT_IOC_IMPORT_DMABUF
VCAM_OUTPUT_IOC_QUEUE
VCAM_OUTPUT_IOC_DEQUEUE
VCAM_OUTPUT_IOC_FREE_FRAMES

This is accessed through output_fd. In addition vma_ioc_new returns control_fd, which is read/poll interface for the streaming status.

With these two interfaces it should be possible to implement drivers for streaming sources such as smartphones.

I feel that this project is going to really awesome direction :-)

#linux #kernel #video
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Next iteration:

struct vcam_ioc_new {
__u64 device_name;
__u32 device_nr;
__u32 output_fd;
__u32 control_fd;
__u8 reserved[12]; /* must be zeroed */
};

enum vcam_control_flags {
VCAM_CONTROL_STREAM_ON = 1ULL << 0,
};

#define VCAM_IOC_NEW _IOWR('v', 0x00, struct vcam_ioc_new)

control_fd emits u64's and read() returns when flags differ from previous call.
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Definitely not final api but at least I have now a mechanism.
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Jarkko Sakkinen

Edited 4 months ago
Stream signaling for vcam: output_fd when read returns (sequence, flags) pairs. Currently there is only a single flag: VCAM_CONTROL_STREAM_ON.

Blocking read() and poll() can be then used to in the source to see client app starts or stops streaming video.
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@jani @neal or actually was on IRC I think but anyhow
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@neal you actually pinged me about it over here about the same time as @jani did about vcam. Clearly a bit of spanking WFM as that has made me move :-)
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